Conflict Strategies: Parents with Children and Children with Peers.

A study investigated whether parents' use of power-assertive or negotiating strategies to resolve conflicts with children predicted children's psychosocial adjustment and use of comparable strategies with peers. The study also determined whether children's behavior with mothers at 2 years of age predicted their behavior with peers at age 6. The study began with a sample of 95 predominantly white, middle-class families and concluded 4 years later with 42 of the mothers, 28 fathers, and their children (20 boys and 22 girls). When the children were 2, mothers and children were observed during a laboratory clean-up task, and children and other family members were observed at home during dinner preparation. Tapes of the observations were transcribed and coded to indicate the frequency of parental use of negative control, control, guidance, and responsiveness. Affective responses and child defiance or compliance were also coded. When the children were 6, the families were recontacted. Parents were administered the Parent Child Conflict Interview and the Child Behavior Checklist; and children were independently administered the Child Peer Conflict Interview and the Preschool Interpersonal Problem Solving Test. Both fathers' and mothers' coercion during parent-child conflict predicted children's concurrent use of coercion with peers. Children of coercive fathers had more aggressive and total problems. Both maternal and child power assertion at age 2 predicted child behavior adjustment at age 6. Finally, the results suggested different developmental trajectories for male and female children. (AC)